Changing your email address in your mail program

These days we all have several email addresses. All of us will have
addresses based on our CRSid: spqr1@eng.cam.ac.uk,
spqr1@cam.ac.uk, spqr1@hermes.cam.ac.uk. Some of us
also have an old engineering ID, often similar to the CRSid without the
numbers, which means we also have another engineering address:
spqr@eng.cam.ac.uk. Later in 2008 the department also hopes to
be able to provide staff members with an additional friendly mail alias
of the form joe.bloggs@eng.cam.ac.uk or
j.z.bloggs@eng.cam.ac.uk.

What do you need to do if your mail program is set up to use one of
these addresses and you wish it to use a different one? This page
attempts to tell you how to make this change in most common main
programs.

Some issues about using alternative addresses

Aliases and Outlook

When you send a message through the hermes mail server it adds a Sender line
to the outgoing message to indicate which hermes user sent the message. This
allows us to use a preferred email address, such as our personal mail alias,
but still allows the hermes adminstrators to trace the message back to the
original hermes account in case of abuse. However there is a second use for
the Sender: line, and that is for a sender to add their own address if they are
sending a message on behalf of someone else: for example a secretary sending
something out for a professor. Outlook tries to be helpful in displaying both
bits of information at the same time, eg:

From: Your Name [crsid@hermes.cam.ac.uk]; on behalf of; Your Name [personal.alias@eng.cam.ac.uk]

This can be confusing to some recipients, and it can only be avoided
by changing the server which is used for outgoing mail, to prevent the
Sender: line from being added. Please contact helpdesk for
assistance with this.

Aliases and vacation messages

To set a vacation message when you are using an alias is almost
exactly the same as when you are using your hermes address. You need to
visit Webmail at https://webmail.hermes.cam.ac.uk/
and log in with your username and password. Click the Manage icon and
then the Vacation button.

The important difference is that you will have to remember to add
your preferred address to the box labelled "Aliases:" on the Vacation
configuration page. It's best to add all your email addresses to this
box, separated by commas, so the vacation message will be sent to people
regardless of which address they have contacted you on.

How to make the changes

Here's how to change your address in some common programs. If you
are using a different program and need help do please contact us at helpdesk and
we will do our best to assist you.

Go to webmail as usual at https://webmail.hermes.cam.ac.uk/
and log in with your username and password. Click on the Manage icon at
the top of the page, then on the Preferences button, followed by the
Compose button. Change your address in the "From Address:" box and then
click the "Change for this and future sessions" button.

Go to the Tools menu and select Email Accounts. In the pop-up window
select "View or change existing email accounts" and click Next. Select
the name of your account and then click the Change button on the right.
Change your address in the box marked "E-mail address" and click Next,
which will take you back to the previous window. Click Finish.

PC Pine

Press M to go to the Main Menu, S for Setup and C for Config. Scroll
down to the line labelled Customized-hdrs. Press Return to edit the line
and add your preferred from line as follows:

From: Joe Bloggs <joe.bloggs@eng.cam.ac.uk>

then press Return to accept. Press E to Exit and say Yes to commit the
changes.

Pine on the Teaching System

For most people on the Teaching System if you type pine on the
command-line it will run Alpine already configured to use your hermes
email. You can then make the change as described above for PC Pine
users.

Alpine

Go to the Tools menu and select Options. A popup window will appear.
Click on the coffee cup icon labelled "Getting Started" in the scrolling
area on the left hand side. The top item on this page should be "Real
Name". Fill in your preferred email address in the second box down,
which is marked "Email Address" and click OK.

Go to the Tools menu and select Accounts. In the pop-up window
select the Mail tab at the top of the window. Select
the name of your account and then click the Properties button on the right.
Change your address in the box marked "E-mail address" and click OK,
which will take you back to the previous window. Click Close.

Go to the Edit menu and select Preferences. Select the name of your
account and then click the Edit button on the right. Change your address
in the box marked "Email Address" and click OK, which will take you back
to the previous window. Click Close.